The Best (And Worst) Smart Home Tech We Tested This Month

Automate Your Life

We’re testing out the best (and worst) new smart home technology hitting the market, like the new Google Home Speaker, the SwitchBot E-Ink Dashboard, and more. I'm giving honest verdict with hands-on reviews, and real-world results of my testing to help you protect your wallet and build a better automated home.  In this episode, we also take a look at a #UGREEN NAS setup for local AI and smart home integration, the new #SwitchBot productivity bundle, advanced presence sensors, smart lighting for the holidays, and more!  Links for today's video: *SwitchBot AI Mindclip* Amazon - https://link.amazon/B0frH3a0m (Amazon affiliate link) SwitchBot Webstore - https://bit.ly/4qPKRlR  *SwitchBot E-Ink Dashboard* Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GWD3JCYY?maas=maas_adg_83000D591499D8F118C6798D0EA16F77_afap_abs&linkCode=ll2&tag=brianread-20&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl (Amazon affiliate link)  SwitchBot Webstore - https://bit.ly/3SRJ2s0  *UGREEN DXP4800 GT*  UGREEN NAS on Official Store (15% off, 9/21-9/27): https://ai.us.ugreen.com/3ekO9h UGREEN NAS DXP4800 GT(15% off, 9/21-9/27): https://link.amazon/B053dHAo1 (Amazon affiliate link) Full #ugreennas Series(15% off): https://link.amazon/B06bVhgLw (Amazon affiliate link)  *ThirdReality R3 Presence Sensor* https://geni.us/s1Ne2 (Amazon affiliate link)  *Google Home Speaker* https://link.amazon/B06Z4ogDw (Amazon affiliate link) or store.google.com  *Govee Outdoor Pathway Lights 2 Lite* https://link.amazon/B02L0y7R8 (Amazon affiliate link)  *Aeotec Siren 8* https://aeotec.com/products/aeotec-siren-8/ *Aeotec Multisensor 8* Link Coming Soon!  *WiiM Amp* https://link.amazon/B03U1luCg (Amazon affiliate link)  *Hue Essential Bulbs* https://link.amazon/B00kBDecr (Amazon affiliate link)  Timecodes for today's video:  00:00 - The Best And Worst New Smart Tech We Tested 00:30 - The New Productivity Bundle? 13:53 - The New Way To Build a WHOLE Smart Home 26:39 - Presence But So Much More 35:12 - A Question For You About AI 36:10 - The Google Home Problem 46:47 - Pathway Lights To End All Lights 51:58 - Double Trouble (Z-Wave) 1:00:13 - A Question For You 1:01:43 - A Smart Amp? 1:05:42 - Old Product Check In (Philips Hue Essentials) 1:08:29 - The AYL Pick Of The Month  Channel links:  Join this channel's member program to get access to extra videos, early releases, and our member's vault! (Automater II and higher), plus other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtRSKEipM17PF7n0mi66btQ/join  Subscribe to Take The Frustration Out Of Automation: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtRSKEipM17PF7n0mi66btQ?sub_confirmation=1  Automate Your Life is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and other Amazon websites.  Thanks for watching, and Live Smart.  Brian

Transcript

00:00:00Turn on the kitchen lights.

00:00:07Hello?

00:00:08Every month we test 10 smart home products.

00:00:11Most of them are brand spanking new.

00:00:13We have an incredible lineup for you today.

00:00:15But I don't just mean incredible as in good.

00:00:18A couple of these crashed and burned during my testing,

00:00:21including one I'm going to test for you live on camera today.

00:00:25Plus, one of these products is going to take our automate your life pick of the month.

00:00:30Let's give her.

00:00:30This little white thing up here, it is SwitchBot's AI MindClip,

00:00:35a new AI-powered thought partner.

00:00:39I just turned it on.

00:00:40Now, sitting next to me is the SwitchBot e-Ink dashboard,

00:00:45which they originally called the weather station,

00:00:47but it has grown into something much bigger.

00:00:50This pairing is essentially a brand new productivity bundle,

00:00:54or at least it could be.

00:00:56Here's the e-Ink dashboard from SwitchBot.

00:01:00You can see it's actually displaying some custom things from Home Assistant for me.

00:01:05Now, there's a couple of things about this dashboard.

00:01:07First of all, pretty skinny.

00:01:09Not completely paper thin or anything like that,

00:01:13but it's an e-Ink display.

00:01:16There's not a lot here.

00:01:17Very light.

00:01:18And you get a couple of stands on the back.

00:01:21They just push in, and then it's going to lean a little bit.

00:01:26Now, there's also a backlight for the display.

00:01:29It only comes on when you press the button.

00:01:32You can see lots of information here.

00:01:35This is the home page.

00:01:36You get to kind of define a lot of that.

00:01:38The second button brings you to your schedule.

00:01:43Now, it says right now, no events for today.

00:01:45It's because I haven't actually synchronized that to my calendar.

00:01:48We're going to do that here.

00:01:50And then you have all the custom pages.

00:01:52So, for myself, that is Home Assistant here.

00:01:57Wow!

00:01:57And that's all this information I'm displaying.

00:02:00Now, you can hear little clicks and little basic things,

00:02:03but it doesn't make a lot of noise.

00:02:04The last set of buttons, these two over here,

00:02:09they are scene execution buttons.

00:02:12And what that means is in the SwitchBot app,

00:02:15you can make scenes that do multiple things around your home.

00:02:18So, if you have a bunch of SwitchBot products,

00:02:20you can run the scenes here and, you know,

00:02:25turn on your TV at the same time as closing your curtains.

00:02:29That's all coming from this with a battery

00:02:32that I have yet to charge in about a month and a half.

00:02:37This is the AI MindClip.

00:02:41Very small device.

00:02:43Honestly, you barely feel it while wearing it.

00:02:47So, it just slips in to your shirt like that.

00:02:50And, you know, that's about all you're going to see from the device.

00:02:54There's a little microphone button.

00:02:57So, right now, I'm actually recording my own voice,

00:03:02whatever's happening in this room.

00:03:04And it's all being stored on the storage sitting on the MindClip.

00:03:08The device also has a tiny indicator.

00:03:11So, when you turn on that recording, there you go,

00:03:15you can see it has an indicator that says it is recording.

00:03:19And then when I turn that off, there you go,

00:03:21we're no longer recording.

00:03:23Now, what a lot of this does is it takes notes for you.

00:03:28And then it connects to the AI MindClip application.

00:03:32So, opening it up, I can see lots of notes.

00:03:35And because I'm at home, because I'm on my Wi-Fi,

00:03:39this will actually get connected and synchronize

00:03:42some of those new recordings to the app.

00:03:45And then from there, what happens is AI analyzes what you've said,

00:03:50and it's going to help you do some work,

00:03:53help you do a couple other things that I'll show you in a minute.

00:03:55So, right now, it's synchronizing those clips

00:04:00and a couple of other clips that I made in the evening.

00:04:03Now, what you get from AI is a summary,

00:04:06a highlight set, and a transcript.

00:04:09And then you can listen to the whole thing on your phone here.

00:04:13And then you can make adjustments after that.

00:04:16And there's a whole system of productivity.

00:04:20So, we end up with things that we need to do

00:04:24or that are scheduled for us.

00:04:26And I'll show you how that works in a minute.

00:04:28The AI MindClip takes every single recording you make

00:04:32and pipes it through a premium frontier AI.

00:04:37Google, Anthropic, ChatGPT, the three big ones.

00:04:41As a quick tip, you know,

00:04:43if you're recording with someone else in the room,

00:04:45don't be a jerk.

00:04:46Make sure you tell them that you're actually recording things.

00:04:49Okay, note for our video production this week.

00:04:53I need to tell Blake to work super hard on this video.

00:04:57I also need to tell SwitchBot by 8 a.m. this Friday

00:05:02what I think about the AI MindClip and all of its features.

00:05:06Okay, let's see how that goes.

00:05:09So, right now, it is transferring this to my phone.

00:05:14Okay, and now it's doing summarizing.

00:05:17You can see right up there.

00:05:19I've chosen which model I want it to use.

00:05:23This may take a few minutes.

00:05:24And now it's finished the summary,

00:05:27the highlight, and the transcription.

00:05:30It's also created two to-dos for me.

00:05:34What's interesting is because I identified a specific time,

00:05:39it's saying September 11th,

00:05:40what I have to tell SwitchBot.

00:05:42So, I said this Friday at 8 a.m.

00:05:44That tells you what day I'm recording.

00:05:45Now, tell Blake to work very hard.

00:05:47That's a to-do, but it doesn't have a date.

00:05:51What that has done inside of the app,

00:05:54inside of the to-do section,

00:05:56is it's created this event,

00:05:59tell SwitchBot what you think about the AI MindClip

00:06:02and all of its features.

00:06:04So, I'm going to tap into that.

00:06:06And what it gives me is an add to reminders

00:06:09and or an add to calendar.

00:06:12So, I'm going to add that to my calendar.

00:06:14I've done that.

00:06:15I had to pick which calendar I wanted to synchronize it to

00:06:18within iOS.

00:06:20And then I hit save.

00:06:22Okay.

00:06:23And just to show you,

00:06:24there it is inside of iOS.

00:06:27I'm going to tap into that.

00:06:28And it's created the event.

00:06:30You can see there's nothing on the calendar just yet.

00:06:33But our last synchronization,

00:06:35it actually says up here,

00:06:36it was about eight minutes ago.

00:06:39The other thing I'd like you to notice

00:06:41is that I have two calendars up here.

00:06:44And down at the bottom,

00:06:45I can switch the source.

00:06:47So, you can have multiple calendars on here.

00:06:52So, as I hit switch source,

00:06:54it's switching over to my Google calendar.

00:06:58What I have synchronized with on my iPhone

00:07:01is my iOS calendar, right?

00:07:04Now, within the SwitchBot app with the E-Ink display,

00:07:08there's one little thing that I'll show you.

00:07:10You can get notifications out of the device.

00:07:14It's just a little tone, okay?

00:07:16But you can get notified whatever you'd like

00:07:20in terms of time, basically,

00:07:22before your event starts.

00:07:24Now, we're a few minutes later.

00:07:26And there you go.

00:07:27You can see it has synchronized the calendar entry

00:07:31into the device.

00:07:34So, not only do I have display of my home,

00:07:37but I can see what's going on in my calendar.

00:07:40I can see the weather.

00:07:42And I can really customize this.

00:07:44This is the custom template system

00:07:48for the E-Ink display.

00:07:50And you get this URL.

00:07:52It's a big URL.

00:07:53You get that in the manual or in the app.

00:07:56There's 12 different templates,

00:07:59six different categories here.

00:08:00So, you can see there's a blank one.

00:08:03There's a weather one over there.

00:08:05There's a few different weather ones.

00:08:07And then we kind of get some schedules.

00:08:09And, you know, this schedule not only has your events on it,

00:08:13but it also has the weather on it.

00:08:15So, I really like that one.

00:08:17And then you have things like news and stocks

00:08:21and a few other options, okay?

00:08:24There's a nice little daily quote one there.

00:08:27But, what I did was a little bit different.

00:08:30This is a conversation that I had with Claude.

00:08:34And we built a custom display.

00:08:38Now, that custom display shows exactly what I want.

00:08:43This is how I put it together,

00:08:46got it connected to Home Assistant,

00:08:48and got it displaying some really different things here

00:08:52for myself.

00:08:53And this is where we ended up.

00:08:56Through this whole interface on the SwitchBot site,

00:09:00we can get custom things onto this.

00:09:03And I'm sure we can do much more than this.

00:09:06The other thing that's really nice about this is,

00:09:09you know, here's my Home Assistant page.

00:09:12And I've used it to override what is set up in the app.

00:09:17Because I haven't said anything here on template three or four,

00:09:22that means that basically the app will guide

00:09:26what's on template three and four.

00:09:28I think a lot of people are gonna look at this

00:09:30and they're gonna go,

00:09:31I don't know that I need that.

00:09:32I don't know that that's better than my voice assistant.

00:09:35I think that's part of the point here.

00:09:37There is some benefit to using this.

00:09:39You saw me create multiple to-dos, okay?

00:09:42So I could have multiple calendar entries

00:09:45created very quickly.

00:09:47We do have that synchronization process.

00:09:49So that's an extra step.

00:09:51It's up to you, if that makes sense for you.

00:09:54What I like about this system

00:09:56is that you don't necessarily

00:09:58have to do everything through here.

00:10:00This could be a portal directly to your work schedule

00:10:03versus maybe you're using Siri or Google

00:10:07to put calendar entries in, in your personal life.

00:10:11That's up to you.

00:10:12But it becomes this opportunity

00:10:14for you to have everything displayed on a calendar.

00:10:18I really like this as a dashboard

00:10:21for that purpose specifically.

00:10:23Something else that's really interesting,

00:10:25because AI is being used here,

00:10:27it can actually identify multiple speakers.

00:10:30So, you know, my kid's obsessed with Pokemon

00:10:32and we had a 10 minute conversation

00:10:35where I flipped this on

00:10:36and it just sat there and identified the speakers

00:10:41and what each person was saying.

00:10:43In the end, actually,

00:10:45the summary notes show the names for the people

00:10:49and what kind of was going on within this.

00:10:52So there's a lot of power here.

00:10:54So these two products went in a few big ways.

00:10:57First, the customization.

00:11:00The e-ink dashboard can show just about anything.

00:11:03Get an AI to work on it, drop it in, done.

00:11:07You have a custom dashboard.

00:11:08And I'm absolutely sure that I could connect this

00:11:11to much more than Home Assistant.

00:11:14Second, the combination of the two,

00:11:16that productivity option of synchronizing

00:11:19to multiple e-ink displays and their calendars is awesome.

00:11:24Multiple people wearing multiple mind clips

00:11:26and multiple e-ink displays around your home.

00:11:29It's really neat to think about.

00:11:30Third, the web interfaces are actually useful.

00:11:34SwitchBot has their great mobile app,

00:11:36but both of these have web interfaces

00:11:38that are clean, expansive,

00:11:40and actually enhance how you use the devices.

00:11:44And finally, the battery life is impressive.

00:11:47They both look great.

00:11:48And the apps and the basic features work really well.

00:11:52So I don't really have anything to complain about.

00:11:56Except, the AI mind clip falls short in a few ways for me.

00:12:01First, there's no voice control.

00:12:03Imagine a little onboard AI, wake word,

00:12:06or opening up the mic.

00:12:08We could have control of our smart home.

00:12:10I could finally be Captain Picard.

00:12:12Second is the manual trigger to sync the calendar.

00:12:17I should be able to add, remove, adjust calendar entries

00:12:20purely by voice recording.

00:12:22SwitchBot did tell me that that is likely coming soon.

00:12:26So hold on to your Star Trek hats.

00:12:28Third, it needs more integration

00:12:30with the rest of my smart home.

00:12:32Right now, the mind clip feels stranded

00:12:34inside the mind clip app.

00:12:37And, you know, finally, this thing costs money.

00:12:40SwitchBot has a credit and a subscription type system.

00:12:44It's not crazy expensive,

00:12:45but I want to use my local AI if I can.

00:12:48I want connections to things like OpenClaw

00:12:51or another local AI system.

00:12:53If I want to, I should be able to record on the device,

00:12:57then process locally and get that all done

00:12:59without a subscription or a cost.

00:13:02What about the E-Ink dashboard?

00:13:04Any drawbacks?

00:13:05I just want more.

00:13:06Bigger.

00:13:07The verdict?

00:13:08Well, the E-Ink dashboard is 100% a buy

00:13:10for anyone with SwitchBot gear in their home,

00:13:12or if you just want a good calendar

00:13:14and a good weather display.

00:13:16If you have Home Assistant, 100%.

00:13:19Again, you can build your own custom display.

00:13:22It's a strong buy.

00:13:24Now, the AI mind clip is where I want to see a bit more.

00:13:27It works today, out of the box,

00:13:29but you'll pay for the AI.

00:13:30It takes interaction to make the calendar

00:13:33and the reminders happen.

00:13:35So it's kind of on an island here.

00:13:37Still, I do think this is one of the best options

00:13:39out there for these little voice recorders.

00:13:42I want the extra features

00:13:44before I turn my recommendation into a full buy.

00:13:47For now, this one's a buy if you want that integration

00:13:51with your calendar and reminders.

00:13:53This big, pretty box is the Ugreen DXP4800GT.

00:13:59It's a network-attached storage device, or a NAS.

00:14:03And the reason I'm so interested in it

00:14:05is because people are starting to use these

00:14:07as the new foundation for building a whole smart home.

00:14:11Traditionally, we haven't packed this much raw computing power

00:14:15into a smart home hub.

00:14:17But this beast, it combines your music, video,

00:14:20camera surveillance, AI that you can chat with,

00:14:23and even the hubs for two major smart home platforms,

00:14:27all under one black roof.

00:14:29This rings in at $650 US.

00:14:32And factor in the cost of at least one hard drive,

00:14:35you're looking at a pretty good-sized build

00:14:37just to get to the starting line.

00:14:39So it's not exactly the cheapest route.

00:14:41But let's find out if it's actually worth

00:14:44your hard-earned cash.

00:14:46This is the main interface for my Ugreen NAS.

00:14:51So all I've done in a web browser

00:14:53is I've gone to a certain IP address.

00:14:56Then there's an app center.

00:14:58So these are apps that you can just click on.

00:15:01You can learn what they're all about.

00:15:02You can hit install,

00:15:03and then you're gonna pick where it's installing.

00:15:06I have a couple of different sets

00:15:08of hard drives called Volumes.

00:15:11You can roll through your storage,

00:15:13have a look at that.

00:15:14You can store things like music.

00:15:16So I've put a ton of music on here.

00:15:19You can put even movies.

00:15:21Because this is a lot of computing power,

00:15:25we have other things that we can install.

00:15:27Things like Home Assistant.

00:15:28We can go directly to that.

00:15:30You can start setting it up,

00:15:32and you can use it right out of the box.

00:15:34Same with OpenClaw.

00:15:36This is me talking to an agent.

00:15:38That agent can make changes on the NAS.

00:15:40It can help you to manage the whole NAS.

00:15:43It can help you to manage Home Assistant

00:15:45if you know how to do that.

00:15:46And of course, there are other things

00:15:48like the Surveillance Center.

00:15:50This is a really powerful tool.

00:15:53I can look at three different RTSP cameras

00:15:57that I've connected in my home,

00:15:59all live all the time.

00:16:01And I can have them record to the hard drives,

00:16:04and I can set that up.

00:16:05There's camera settings.

00:16:06I can look at the video.

00:16:08So if I want to see the different event videos,

00:16:10they're all here.

00:16:11And this is just like a microcosm

00:16:13of what you can do

00:16:14because you have apps like Docker.

00:16:17And then you have little widgets

00:16:19and a notification panel.

00:16:22So there's updates all the time.

00:16:24And of course, you have little notifications

00:16:26from things like your Surveillance Center.

00:16:28So there's lots going on here,

00:16:31and I'll show you a little bit more as we go.

00:16:34So what do you get?

00:16:35All the usual suspects are in the box.

00:16:37The NAS itself, power cables, an Ethernet cable,

00:16:41and this little key that locks and unlocks your drive

00:16:45so they don't fall out or get yanked out accidentally.

00:16:49There's eight gigs of RAM,

00:16:50an AMD Ryzen processor with four cores and eight threads,

00:16:55and dual 10 gigabit Ethernet ports.

00:16:58And then we get into storage.

00:17:00My unit has four hard drive bays,

00:17:02though you can find models with more or less.

00:17:05You can cram up to 144 terabytes of storage

00:17:08into this bad boy.

00:17:10And that's partly because you can also slap in

00:17:12two M2 NVMe drives underneath.

00:17:16Plus, you got five USB ports scattered around the NAS here.

00:17:22That's for external drives and accessories like this.

00:17:27And if that wasn't enough input-output stuff for you,

00:17:30there's an HDMI port,

00:17:32full-sized SD card slot right on the front.

00:17:35And one crucial detail for later,

00:17:37the RAM is replaceable.

00:17:39And thankfully, it's DDR4,

00:17:42meaning it dodges the ridiculous pricing

00:17:45we're seeing on memory these days.

00:17:47Now, I didn't expect it,

00:17:48but setup on this is hilariously simple.

00:17:50You create an account,

00:17:52and from there,

00:17:52it's just basic drop-down menus

00:17:54to configure your storage.

00:17:56I set up one volume for pure storage with RAID 5,

00:18:01so I have some automated backup

00:18:03and some peace of mind.

00:18:05And I created a separate non-RAID volume

00:18:08dedicated solely to the smart home.

00:18:11Then I hit the Ugreen App Store

00:18:13like a kid in a candy shop,

00:18:15and I quickly installed Docker,

00:18:17Home Assistant,

00:18:19Ugreen's surveillance hub for cameras,

00:18:21OpenClaw for AI,

00:18:23plus a few apps to manage my music and my video.

00:18:27Docker unlocks a whole other world here.

00:18:30I installed Homey self-hosted

00:18:32and grabbed tools like Matter Server

00:18:34and Z-Wave's JSUI to feed into Home Assistant.

00:18:38I had all that stuff running and working

00:18:41in about 20 minutes.

00:18:42Honestly, incredible.

00:18:44So it sounds amazing, right?

00:18:46I've got tons of storage,

00:18:48and I can even access that remotely.

00:18:52So, you know, I can go into my music.

00:18:55I can play music directly here on my phone.

00:18:58So even if you just have Bluetooth,

00:19:00you can do that.

00:19:01But I've been using Apple CarPlay

00:19:03because there's an app.

00:19:04And yeah, I can just play things.

00:19:07There we go.

00:19:09I've got the surveillance center,

00:19:11and I think this is just a fantastic tool

00:19:14for a lot of people.

00:19:15You can see this little icon down here

00:19:17that says AI.

00:19:19You'll notice I'm using that on two of my cameras,

00:19:22but not on this camera.

00:19:24That's actually AI event detection.

00:19:26Now, I happen to think that this system works better

00:19:30as a 24-7 recording tool.

00:19:32That's kind of what I've learned.

00:19:34It's not perfect in terms of event detection,

00:19:38this smart detection.

00:19:39So you can see I can enable those things.

00:19:41It hasn't been perfect for things like that.

00:19:44It's not catching all the events I should.

00:19:46And I've already shown you Home Assistant

00:19:49and OpenClaw for AI.

00:19:51And these are amazing things.

00:19:54But here's where the rubber meets the road.

00:19:57And if you're gonna build your smart home this way,

00:20:00you gotta be ready to roll up your sleeves.

00:20:03So just looking at the Home Assistant app,

00:20:06this is called Containerized Home Assistant.

00:20:10That means it's not a full operating system

00:20:13or a HAOS install.

00:20:16You don't get the standard add-on store,

00:20:18so you'll notice here there's no add-ons, okay?

00:20:22That's not available on this version.

00:20:24I do have my Z-Wave and my Zigbee sticks attached to this,

00:20:30and I can add devices that way.

00:20:32It's actually really easy to do that here.

00:20:35But this version is old too.

00:20:39So, you know, when I go into the system here

00:20:42and I look at Updates, there's no updates available.

00:20:46And when I look at the version,

00:20:48see how it says Core 2026 1.1.

00:20:53As an automator, this caused me problems

00:20:55because I'm trying to add some of the newest Matter devices.

00:20:59They're not working right.

00:21:00Thread is a little behind.

00:21:02These are big deals to people

00:21:03who are constantly working with their smart home.

00:21:06So what happened to me is I stopped wanting to use

00:21:11this version of Home Assistant.

00:21:13And this is kind of the path that I've ended up on.

00:21:17I built a virtual machine.

00:21:19It's actually a really simple process.

00:21:20And I put a JAOS on it.

00:21:24It's a really short process to get everything working.

00:21:27And I was able to pipe through my Z-Wave

00:21:30and Zigbee sticks again.

00:21:32Totally fine.

00:21:33You're just choosing the USB controllers that you're using.

00:21:36And you're choosing how much memory you're using.

00:21:38All of this really simple stuff.

00:21:40And I can boot it up.

00:21:42And I've also been able to run things like Homey.

00:21:46So this is Homey self-hosted here.

00:21:49And that's running at the same time

00:21:51as Home Assistant and OpenClaw.

00:21:53Amazing stuff we've got going on here.

00:21:55So now this is my full version of Home Assistant.

00:22:00And you can see it right away.

00:22:01If I want, I can update my Home Assistant core.

00:22:05Here's Z-Wave.

00:22:06I've got Thread.

00:22:07I've got Matter.

00:22:08I've got Bluetooth even.

00:22:10So everything is here very quickly.

00:22:14And this is your full version.

00:22:16Now, this is still where we run into a little bit of an issue.

00:22:22And this is honestly just 2026 in a nutshell.

00:22:26Right here, I'm using 4.8 out of 7.2 gigabytes of the RAM on this device.

00:22:35The memory.

00:22:36And you can see I've just set this to 3 gigabytes maximum.

00:22:42That's what I've given to my Home Assistant.

00:22:45Now, in general, Home Assistant wants 4 gigabytes.

00:22:48And I easily push 3.5 to 4 with my Home Assistant green that I have in my home.

00:22:56So I'm going to push up to 5.8, maybe a little more.

00:23:00Now, I am running a few things on here to say the least.

00:23:05And what I'm really trying to tell you is that if you're running AI on the surveillance system,

00:23:11if you're running OpenClaw, if you're running homing self-hosted server,

00:23:17and then you're running Home Assistant on a virtual machine,

00:23:21you're going to end up in a place where you might have to make some decisions to not run things.

00:23:28Because you might want more RAM for something.

00:23:33And that 8 gigabytes does really limit you.

00:23:36And that's before I'm running some other AI models that you can run.

00:23:43The silver lining here is that the memory in this system is DDR4.

00:23:50And it's easily upgradable.

00:23:52But out of the box, you're just going to have to make some hard choices about what you actually want

00:23:58to run

00:23:58unless you throw in a 16 or a 32 gigabyte kit right away.

00:24:04So where is this great?

00:24:07Where does it win?

00:24:08Well, first, it does a lot, not just for your smart home, also for your family.

00:24:14Secondly, you know, Docker and the Ugreen UI.

00:24:17It actually makes this a really nice interface.

00:24:21Makes all of this approachable, not impossible.

00:24:24And third, once Home Assistant OS is running on here,

00:24:28connecting your ZigBee, Z-Wave, or Thread radios via these plentiful USB ports is actually a breeze.

00:24:38Plug them in, click one config option, and you're off to the horsey races.

00:24:42Where does it fall short?

00:24:43Well, first, the upfront cost.

00:24:47NAS drives are expensive.

00:24:48And that 8 gigs of RAM does eventually force some decisions here.

00:24:53Thankfully, that DDR4 upgrade is cheap.

00:24:55If I throw about 200 bucks at this, I can get 32 gigs of RAM.

00:25:00And that would unlock a good local AI model for OpenClaw, as well as essentially remove the memory limits.

00:25:08Now, second app updates and versioning on those.

00:25:11That containerized Home Assistant app was stuck on 2026 1.1, which is super old now.

00:25:19And that practically forces you into doing a full virtual machine install, or at least as far as I'm concerned.

00:25:26And the reason I say that is because I have problems with matter and thread on that old version.

00:25:33What's my verdict after all this?

00:25:35Honestly, this is complex to talk about, but it's actually a really smart way to build a smart home in

00:25:412026.

00:25:42There's so much computing power here, and this opens all kinds of doors.

00:25:47With the advent of OpenClaw, and the Docker software, and Ugreen's overall system, this is really a door that's just

00:25:55opening for automators like you and I.

00:25:58And look, we're definitely riding the bleeding edge with this kind of a setup.

00:26:04But if you're a tech tinkerer at heart, and you need some serious storage at home anyway, this is a

00:26:10strong buy.

00:26:12You can build out your smart home with this NAS over time, upgrading as you go.

00:26:17I haven't even touched the limits of what you can install with Docker 2, so there's way more to do

00:26:23here.

00:26:24However, if you're already pulling your hair out over the basics of smart home hubs, maybe hold off on this

00:26:31one for a bit.

00:26:32So this one gets a buy-if recommendation.

00:26:35And the big caveat here is if you're ready for a serious project.

00:26:40This is the third reality multifunction smart presence sensor R3.

00:26:46And I'm going to show you how easy this is to set up.

00:26:49So I'm holding the reset button, and I've hit search for Zigbee device inside of Home Assistant.

00:26:57And you can see it's already found it.

00:26:59It's lighting up green here.

00:27:01I know the light's a little hard to see in this setting.

00:27:04But now all I have to do is name it, and we can use the device.

00:27:08This is just showing you a little bit of a preview of just how much we get with this device.

00:27:13So I have it inside of my application, and now I have full control of the device.

00:27:19So we can see very quick control.

00:27:22I can even go in, make adjustments to the different colors.

00:27:26So it's actually a pretty nice little light that they have on these.

00:27:31You can adjust them very quickly.

00:27:32Then what we have are the number of sensors on here.

00:27:37So I've just turned over the device, and the first one is called a luminance.

00:27:44This is basically how bright it is in the room.

00:27:47So in a dark room, you can tell.

00:27:49The occupancy sensor is a presence sensor.

00:27:53It's like radar off of this.

00:27:56And that detects when I'm in the room.

00:27:59It can detect whether I'm moving or not.

00:28:02It actually, because it's using 60 gigahertz, it can get down to a really low movement level.

00:28:08Stuff like your chest expanding and contracting.

00:28:12And then the third one is one of the most interesting sensors out there today.

00:28:171,138 parts per billion of what are called total volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, TVOC.

00:28:26Now, below all of this are all kinds of different ways for you to change the behavior of the light

00:28:35and the presence sensor and that VOC sensor.

00:28:40And then, of course, you can build automations based off of this.

00:28:45They're going to work really well for your home because of all those different sensors that are on this device.

00:28:51But let me show you how this can work with a basic lighting automation.

00:28:58Here's a very dark bathroom.

00:29:01You can see it right there.

00:29:02Okay.

00:29:03Now, let's go in.

00:29:06Here we are in front.

00:29:07And you can see the little R3 there.

00:29:09You can see these lights came right on.

00:29:12They're just some cheap IKEA bulbs.

00:29:15And, yeah, the whole thing worked.

00:29:17Now, why would I put you in a bathroom with me?

00:29:21Well, there's kind of two stories I want to tell you.

00:29:23Number one, when I come in the home, in the back door here, you can see it behind me right

00:29:29there.

00:29:30This turns on.

00:29:31It's actually a really nice night light.

00:29:34So I've left it doing that.

00:29:43See?

00:29:44Told you.

00:29:45You don't have to have it set up that way.

00:29:47You can calibrate it.

00:29:48You can put it in different positions.

00:29:50Whatever you want.

00:29:51So you just saw a couple of automations.

00:29:54You saw that automatic VOC lighting automation.

00:29:58That's just based on some of the configuration on this.

00:30:00But I just want to show you why something like this is very effective.

00:30:05So, first of all, we have a new automation that I'm building here.

00:30:10And, basically, when occupancy is detected in front of this sensor or behind it.

00:30:15It actually works behind it.

00:30:16And the numeric state of the illuminance is below 300.

00:30:23So, when it's dark in the room, then we're going to turn on the lights.

00:30:27And I would just make a reverse one.

00:30:29So, when occupancy is no longer detected, we're going to turn off the lights.

00:30:34Okay?

00:30:34But that is going to give us the lighting control here in the kitchen.

00:30:41If I want to use this in the kitchen.

00:30:43And so, here's that automation.

00:30:45Right?

00:30:46Occupancy has cleared.

00:30:48And if I wanted, you know, something like this, I could say, okay, when it's cleared for, let's say, a

00:30:54minute, then I want my lights to go off.

00:30:58And I don't have any other conditions in here.

00:31:00I'm just turning off the lights.

00:31:02So, you can decide how to set these up.

00:31:05But the point is that you have multiple sensors just on one device.

00:31:10So, you can see the lights are on here.

00:31:13I've been kind of running around the room a little bit.

00:31:16But, as I leave, the lights are going to turn off based on my presence.

00:31:21You'll see that one stays on.

00:31:22Now, I actually did that for a reason.

00:31:24It takes about 10 seconds to recognize that you're out of the room.

00:31:28So, if you want really fast on and off, well, okay.

00:31:32It's a little different than that.

00:31:33We're doing a little bit of cooking recently.

00:31:35You can see that there.

00:31:37And actually, this sensor was really useful for that.

00:31:42Now, this is the third sensor I'm talking about.

00:31:44This is the TVOC sensor.

00:31:47I don't know if this ever happens to you.

00:31:49But, you know, I get cooking or I get cleaning.

00:31:52And I kind of get like a little bit of a sore throat.

00:31:56And it goes away after I resolve this problem.

00:31:59Now, that problem is actually, as I've come to realize through sensors like this, VOCs in the air.

00:32:06In a lot of cases, VOCs are not something you want to be breathing in all the time.

00:32:11And this type of sensor is actually really hard to find.

00:32:14Today, a lot of air purifiers will just put what's called a particulate or a PM 2.5 or 10.

00:32:22And that's describing the size of particle.

00:32:25They'll put that kind of sensor on the air purifier.

00:32:29And then, on top of that, they may or may not actually filter that out of the air.

00:32:33And for myself, it's been really hard to find good sensors with that on it.

00:32:39So, I love this combination for my own home.

00:32:43And I'll show you how it works.

00:32:45We're in a bathroom.

00:32:47And this is our guest bathroom, okay?

00:32:49And, you know, some people come here and they do certain things in here.

00:32:52And that sensor turns red on them.

00:32:55And then they ask me why the sensor turned red on them.

00:32:59And I have to explain very awkwardly that that's a VOC sensor.

00:33:05And whatever they're doing in here triggered that sensor.

00:33:16So, there we go.

00:33:18So, there.

00:33:19It's going off.

00:33:20It's alarming fully now.

00:33:22And I'll just show you.

00:33:25We're at...

00:33:25I had to spray a lot to get it moving in here fast enough for this to not take an

00:33:32hour.

00:33:32But we're almost at 10,000.

00:33:36And there we go.

00:33:37Look at that.

00:33:38So, where does the R3 win?

00:33:40Well, there's a lot to love that I've already talked about.

00:33:43Super high reliability because of Zigbee.

00:33:46The combination of sensors.

00:33:48The fact that a VOC sensor is pretty rare.

00:33:50Because it's a multi-sensor, making automations with it is really simple.

00:33:54And in the end, the pricing is much lower than getting a number of these devices on their own.

00:33:59But, of course, there are a few things that could be improved.

00:34:03Now, because they combined all these different sensors and the light onto one device.

00:34:09And then put Zigbee on it, that's why you only have Home Assistant and Samsung SmartThings.

00:34:15The hub has to learn how to interface with all those things.

00:34:18So, I hope they get some more hub compatibility.

00:34:21And I'm sure they will with this one.

00:34:23I think the only real problem is that this needs a mount.

00:34:28I even had a look at 3D printer sites.

00:34:32I couldn't find a model for this.

00:34:34So, one would need to be designed that doesn't cover the sensors and lets the power cable come in.

00:34:42And then it'd be perfect.

00:34:44Now, without sensors, your smart home sucks.

00:34:47With good sensors, your smart home is amazing.

00:34:50And this is a great one.

00:34:52And I think the VOC sensor makes it worth it for a lot of people.

00:34:55Especially when combined with a presence sensor that can do so much for you.

00:34:59This one is a strong buy from me.

00:35:02Third Reality has become an expert at building these kinds of multi-use devices.

00:35:07And this one is just the latest in a long line of great products.

00:35:12Before we go on to our next products, this video is our showcase.

00:35:15And this is our second episode of it.

00:35:18I'm just starting to get into the swing of things in terms of our build schedule and what we're going

00:35:24to include in this.

00:35:25And I'd love to hear one thing from you.

00:35:28AI is such a massive thing right now.

00:35:31And I feel like it's really difficult to sort through for all of us.

00:35:35I do have a little insight into what's working and what isn't.

00:35:39So, is this video a good place to show off some of the AI tools that I've been able to

00:35:45use?

00:35:45Or is there a different way that you would like to see AI showcased on our channel?

00:35:50And these days, I'm able to try a lot of tools.

00:35:53And we get a lot of emails from companies asking us to show them to you.

00:35:57So, I want to open that up because I do think there's value in some of it.

00:36:02But I don't know if this is the place.

00:36:04I'm open to making other videos.

00:36:06And I have a few ideas myself.

00:36:09But I want to hear yours.

00:36:10This is the new Google Home speaker.

00:36:13It's not brand new.

00:36:15But you can see that new recycled, they call it knit fabric here.

00:36:21See that?

00:36:21It kind of rolls through a few colors when you first get it up there.

00:36:26There's also some little buttons.

00:36:28Okay.

00:36:28These are for volume control.

00:36:31Okay.

00:36:32If you hit in the middle, you can start and stop playback if you have anything playing on there.

00:36:39Now, this is $100.

00:36:42And Google used to start their pricing around $50 here in Canada.

00:36:48They have a physical mic switch.

00:36:51So, the mic is actually physically disconnected in here.

00:36:56This is something that Google will confirm for us.

00:36:59I haven't opened up one of these to have a look at that.

00:37:01But that is the way the old speakers worked.

00:37:04You could actually disconnect the microphone with that physically.

00:37:09Now, at $100, for this to kind of be the entry point, this is asking a little more of us

00:37:15than it used to.

00:37:16The speaker now uses Google's Gemini.

00:37:20So, this is obviously a big difference from what we experienced many years ago with the Google Assistant.

00:37:26Gemini is much more capable when we're just having those basic conversations with it.

00:37:32But, does it hit the mark for us as automators?

00:37:37Turn on the kitchen lights.

00:37:47Hello?

00:37:49Turn on the lights in the kitchen.

00:37:50No, wait.

00:37:51Close the shades in the kitchen.

00:38:03Kitchen, kitchen, kitchen, window, offline.

00:38:09So, here's my kitchen window in the Lutron app.

00:38:16That seems to be working.

00:38:18Oh!

00:38:20Look, my lights came on.

00:38:22Huh.

00:38:23It's like the lights are working, too.

00:38:26Okay.

00:38:28Well, everything seems perfect there.

00:38:31Maybe not a Google problem.

00:38:34Maybe.

00:38:34Hang on.

00:38:36Turn on the pendant lights.

00:38:40Oh.

00:38:41Well.

00:38:44Would you look at that?

00:38:46Seems like Apple can do it.

00:38:49Turn off the cylinder floor lamp.

00:38:56Cylinder floor lamp to blue.

00:39:04What you just witnessed is called cloud lag, or that's what I'm going to call it anyways.

00:39:09It's basically how long this speaker has to take to get out to Google's cloud service, which is Gemini at

00:39:20this point, and then come all the way back to my home with that command.

00:39:24So, when the commands do work, they're a little bit slow.

00:39:29Okay.

00:39:30So, the smart home control isn't perfect.

00:39:32That could just be like a Lutron problem, for example.

00:39:36It's not.

00:39:38I've tested other things, but some of the smart home control with Google works all right.

00:39:44What is pretty interesting is something that actually we had about, well, seven years ago.

00:39:51What's the weather like today?

00:39:55It's 16 degrees Celsius and partly sunny in this afternoon.

00:40:00Expect showers later this afternoon with a high of 16 degrees Celsius and a low of 8 degrees Celsius tonight.

00:40:06What should I wear then?

00:40:07Since it's 16 degrees Celsius with rain in the forecast, layering is your best strategy.

00:40:13I recommend wearing a light, moisture-wicking base layer and pants, topped with a sweater or fleece for warmth.

00:40:19Because of the expected showers, make sure to bring a waterproof rain jacket and comfortable, water-resistant footwear.

00:40:25What's it like tomorrow then?

00:40:27It'll be a cooler and cloudier day tomorrow with a high of 11 degrees Celsius.

00:40:32Now, that's called continued conversation, and I'm just going to...

00:40:37I'm just going to quiet her down for a minute.

00:40:40Continued conversation means you don't actually have to reuse that wake word every time.

00:40:46So that, number one, is a setting you can turn on and off.

00:40:50But number two, it keeps the context within your conversation.

00:40:54Now, we had that with the Google Assistant, but nowadays, this is responding much better with Gemini on it versus

00:41:01the Google Assistant would.

00:41:03You could kind of lose the Google Assistant quickly in the past.

00:41:07This is a little smarter.

00:41:09I want to build a multi-step automation where, basically, we're going to be able to turn things on based

00:41:17on a couple of different sensors that I have throughout my home.

00:41:22Can we do that?

00:41:23So I can't do that yet when we are live.

00:41:25You can end live mode and then try asking again.

00:41:30Okay.

00:41:31Let's end live mode.

00:41:34I don't know what the live...

00:41:35So Google can improve.

00:41:37It would help to know how satisfied you are with our conversation.

00:41:40How would you rate it if one's the worst and five's the best?

00:41:45One.

00:41:47Incredibly frustrating to have to deal with stuff like that.

00:41:51Like, I don't want you to ask me.

00:41:53I know you want some feedback there, Googs, but don't ask me anymore.

00:41:59Stop.

00:41:59Now, okay, I can't use chat mode, but let's try to build something a little more complex in terms of

00:42:06automation.

00:42:06Okay?

00:42:07And that would help a lot of people.

00:42:09Let's build a multi-step automation.

00:42:13I cannot create or configure home automations directly as I am unable to control or modify the state of your

00:42:19smart home devices or settings.

00:42:20You can typically manage these automations using the Google Home app on your phone.

00:42:25Would you like me to walk you through the steps to set up an automation in the app?

00:42:28The mic's off.

00:42:29The mic's back on.

00:42:31So I can't set up an automation by voice.

00:42:34Some of the smart home control is pretty weak.

00:42:36I think you guys get where I'm headed here.

00:42:38But this is partly a speaker.

00:42:41So let's get it playing some music.

00:43:02Now, in my mind, it sounds a lot like the Nest Audio.

00:43:07Don't know if you guys remember this one.

00:43:18This was much stronger than this.

00:43:22And this used to be $99, just like this is today.

00:43:26The other thing is, you know, your old Google Home speakers, they're actually working with Gemini, or a lot of

00:43:33them are.

00:43:34My Nest Audio, upon reconnecting it in my home recently, it's working directly with Gemini.

00:43:41So it's not the Google Assistant anymore on your old speakers.

00:43:44It's coming across.

00:43:45That is a little bit dependent on which country you're in.

00:43:49So I'll give that little caveat.

00:43:50Today, when I compare these two experiences, some of our older speakers are still better in a lot of ways.

00:43:58I want to have a conversation about this feature.

00:44:03Is this feature tucked behind a subscription after my 30-day trial, after purchasing this speaker?

00:44:10Yes.

00:44:11Once your 30-day trial or the included promotional period ends, you would need a subscription to keep using those

00:44:17specific premium features.

00:44:18Without an active subscription, you'll...

00:44:21Hmm, something went wrong.

00:44:22I guess you don't want to tell me about that, hey?

00:44:25Now, that was the chat feature, and, you know, that's supposed to let you have this ongoing chat with Gemini.

00:44:33And you just saw what happened.

00:44:35Number one, it's tucked behind a subscription.

00:44:38And number two, it failed right out.

00:44:41And, you know, this is just indicative of the Google platform.

00:44:45I'm going to stop, like, going through all the different components here, because the truth is, Google is really at

00:44:54the same spot that they were three, four years ago.

00:44:58And actually, they've regressed in a lot of ways.

00:45:01The whole platform is the problem here.

00:45:05None of it is worth your time.

00:45:08I'm going to tell you that up front.

00:45:10When you watched today, you saw I couldn't control my lights here.

00:45:15Those are Lutron lights.

00:45:16Those are Lutron shades.

00:45:18It's one of the most reliable platforms out there.

00:45:20I couldn't get it to control right through Google Home.

00:45:24The only platform I think I've ever seen was a problem with those lights.

00:45:29And it's not that I didn't test other things before I came on here and did that.

00:45:33I tested Philips Hue, had a little problem with them today, too, after testing multiple times.

00:45:39It's just not reliable.

00:45:41The other problem is that almost everything is tucked behind a subscription.

00:45:46But you just saw in that live chat, all the good stuff that you're going to want is behind that.

00:45:52Everything from the Nest cameras, they're going to charge you for that cloud storage.

00:45:56The Gemini Advanced features, features just in the app are also tucked behind that paywall.

00:46:03So there's just a cost for a platform that really Google hasn't shown a lot of willingness and a lot

00:46:11of excitement about updating and getting better at.

00:46:15And I think that's the biggest problem I have here.

00:46:18But this has Gemini on it.

00:46:20You could probably get it from your friend for $10.

00:46:23So if you want something like that, I'd actually start to look at some of the older speakers.

00:46:29They're going to be around for a little bit.

00:46:31You might not get 10 years out of them, but at least you'll get that without spending $100.

00:46:37And yeah, I think this one is a full skip.

00:46:40And my recommendation actually is to go find a friend who got tired of Google a long time ago.

00:46:47Automators, I hate to tell you, but it's time for Halloween.

00:46:51Now, if you're still using cheap and basic solar path lights, we can have a serious talk here.

00:46:56These are the Govee Outdoor Pathway Lights 2 light.

00:47:02I went around to like my different neighbors' houses.

00:47:05I looked at all their path lights.

00:47:07And honestly, these destroy traditional outdoor lighting.

00:47:11But they're even better for these holiday seasons that are coming.

00:47:16Now, the pack I purchased has eight path lights total.

00:47:19There's eight light stands alongside eight ground spikes.

00:47:23And of course, all the power cabling you're going to need.

00:47:26And a few little extras.

00:47:28Now, these connect to your home using Wi-Fi and matter.

00:47:31So you get basic control in any app and a ton of control in the Govee app.

00:47:36Plus, they use Bluetooth.

00:47:38So if your Wi-Fi is down, you can still connect to these when you're close.

00:47:42But instead of a basic path light, you're getting full RGBW LEDs with 16 million colors and a great range

00:47:50when it comes to color temperatures.

00:47:52One of the things that I really love about these is that you can kind of put them on two

00:47:59sides of your pathway.

00:48:00It's actually a really nice setup from Govee.

00:48:03So this effect I was showing you is the Halloween effect.

00:48:06And actually, there's many of them.

00:48:08One of my favorites actually is the ghost one.

00:48:11Really kind of understated, flashing a little bit, moving around a bit.

00:48:16And of course, you have full brightness control.

00:48:18If you want to control each of the eight that I purchased here, you can individually control them.

00:48:26You can even individually control the brightness.

00:48:28Even within each effect, you have the ability to change the speed of it.

00:48:34Once you have it customized the way you want, then you can save it to your favorites and get a

00:48:39whole list there.

00:48:40And if that wasn't enough, you have full AI generation of effects.

00:48:46And you have the ability to synchronize these fully with all of the other Govee products.

00:48:52But sometimes the simplest stuff is the best.

00:48:56So here's a simple white light.

00:48:59And I just want to show you, you know, this is a little bright.

00:49:05Okay, and I'm going to go back and show you.

00:49:09Again, nothing wrong with my neighbor's lights.

00:49:11Nothing wrong with these.

00:49:13Okay, but we got a little difference here.

00:49:19Now, again, if I want to get to that level, I can.

00:49:24One of the things I like is the color temperature movement.

00:49:28So, you know, those are a little bit more orange.

00:49:30This is called Warm Welcome.

00:49:33And it kind of runs through the lights really quickly.

00:49:37There you go.

00:49:38You can see it making a path for you, basically.

00:49:41And then there's the nightlight setting.

00:49:43So, that's actually my very favorite of the basic effects.

00:49:48It's really dark.

00:49:50Just that orange light for late at night.

00:49:53But it does still light up the pathway or whatever you want to light up.

00:49:58And, of course, as with all Govee lights today, they win in some big ways.

00:50:03And they have a couple of catches.

00:50:04The win.

00:50:05You know, because the design is, I would say, awesome.

00:50:09They look great.

00:50:10They're tall.

00:50:11They push out a good amount of light.

00:50:12But they're not overbearing.

00:50:14Second is the versatility with this.

00:50:16You do both sides of your path or one.

00:50:19And the versatility to combine it with other lights is unmatched by any other lighting platform.

00:50:26Now, third is the feature set.

00:50:28You have generative AI options.

00:50:30You can individually control each light.

00:50:32You have music and scene synchronization options.

00:50:35And simple features like scheduling or motion triggering.

00:50:39That helps these be useful year-round.

00:50:42But there are two catches.

00:50:44If you're putting this in a smart home, well, matter is a limitation.

00:50:48Matter just gives you basic control on-off brightness and a single color.

00:50:53So, if you're not using Govi or Amazon's app and you want to use those other ones, it's going to

00:50:58be pretty basic.

00:50:59Second, the stakes, they could be a little difficult to get in the ground if the ground is very hard.

00:51:06So, maybe do this before winter.

00:51:07I had to use a little engineering ingenuity.

00:51:11Otherwise known as a rubber mallet and a screwdriver in one part of my yard where I think the city

00:51:16put a basic gravel in.

00:51:18And third, you know, the cabling is a little hard to manage.

00:51:21It's just because there's three feet of cable between each of these.

00:51:24And that's not a big deal if you're going to put them three feet apart.

00:51:27It's definitely not a big deal in the winter.

00:51:29But for a nice setup, you're going to maybe want to hold the cables down or push the cabling into

00:51:36a gap in your sidewalk like I did.

00:51:38These ones are awesome.

00:51:40And it's easy to recommend lights like this.

00:51:43Honestly, it's a freebie for me.

00:51:45So, this is a buy.

00:51:46Especially if you have Govi lights elsewhere.

00:51:48It's going to help you make these moments when the kids are coming up to your home.

00:51:52And with the way these ones look, I think lots of adults are going to have those little moments and

00:51:57be a little jealous too.

00:51:58Over here is the Aotec Multisensor 8.

00:52:02And alongside that is the new Siren 8.

00:52:05They are both part of Aotec's new Z-Wave 800 series lineup featuring Z-Wave Long Range.

00:52:12And I paired them directly to Home Assistant to get the most out of them.

00:52:16Now, the Multisensor 8 packs six different sensors into one tiny package.

00:52:22Motion, tamper, temperature, humidity, dew point, and light.

00:52:27You can mount it with the included 3M tape and run it off two CR123 batteries, also included.

00:52:34Or you can plug it in permanently using the included USB cable and or do a full permanent install with

00:52:43the included mount and screws.

00:52:44The Siren 8 is a plug-in alarm that fits on half of a standard North American outlet.

00:52:53It features a flashing strobe and a 104 decibel siren.

00:52:59Okay.

00:52:59And it's got 10 volume levels and five different tones.

00:53:03But the best part is that it has a built-in 430 milliamp hour backup battery.

00:53:09So if your power goes down, it can still scream for up to two hours.

00:53:13Because you have so many options for install, setup, and power, the experience here is really what you make of

00:53:20it.

00:53:20Living with these devices day-to-day comes down to two major things, coverage and reliability.

00:53:27With the multi-sensor 8 having six sensors in one unit changes how you lay out a room.

00:53:33Because the motion sensor reliably sees out to a 12 meter range with a massive 120 degree field of view,

00:53:42one sensor mounted in the corner catches everything.

00:53:45And when you plug it in, the experience shifts from your typical sleepy battery sensor to a real-time monitoring

00:53:53powerhouse.

00:53:54You can crank up the reporting intervals so your hub gets lots of updates.

00:54:00If there's a sudden drop in temperature or a mold risk in a cold basement corner,

00:54:05you actually know about it before it becomes a problem.

00:54:09And with the siren 8, it's about peace of mind.

00:54:11It isn't just an annoying 104 decibel blare for break-ins because you have those five tones and 10 volume

00:54:19levels.

00:54:19You can use a softer chime for subtle household alerts, like a garage door left open for too long,

00:54:26while reserving the full strobe and siren for a serious security event.

00:54:30And knowing it has an internal battery backup means if a breaker trips or someone cuts the power,

00:54:36your security feedback doesn't just die.

00:54:39For our reality check with these, I wanted you to see the pairing in action.

00:54:43Now, I think it's important in this situation to know that the siren is being triggered by the motion sensor.

00:54:50So, you're seeing the full loop of both speed of response.

00:54:54Now, as I go around, watch how fast.

00:54:57Look at how quick that is.

00:54:59It's almost instantaneous.

00:55:01Now, that's round trip.

00:55:03And this automation, it'll stop here in a second.

00:55:07Now, that's like the lowest setting I could find for the volume.

00:55:12So, you're not going to get a really quiet one, but yeah, you saw how fast that was.

00:55:18So, one of the things, number one, you can see it says motion detected, but look at this parameter right

00:55:27here.

00:55:27So, I just enabled it.

00:55:28It's the motion re-trigger time.

00:55:30I set that to 30 seconds.

00:55:32So, if I go away for 30 seconds and come back, it'll say cleared and we'll be ready to run

00:55:38the automation again.

00:55:40One of the things you want to know with a motion sensor is how wide of a field of view

00:55:46does it have.

00:55:48Now, I'm quite a bit out here and we're still in a clear spot, but let's move.

00:55:55Yeah.

00:55:56So, about here it got me.

00:55:59And I would call that, yeah, about 60 degrees out.

00:56:04We're not at 90 by any means, but yeah, 60 degrees out.

00:56:08And, you know, I'm 15 feet away right now.

00:56:11So, I just turned on the motion sensitivity.

00:56:15I'm going to crank it because as to now, I've got about 21 feet for motion detection distance.

00:56:28I think it went to sleep.

00:56:30Oh, there it goes.

00:56:31It's about 20 feet that it's reliably doing it at.

00:56:35Right here, you see the dew point at, it says 17.2 degrees.

00:56:42So, what that's saying is any temperature that's lower than that is going to have a little bit of water

00:56:47on it.

00:56:48And that's actually being calculated through the air temperature and the humidity in here.

00:56:55Okay.

00:56:55There's so much on here.

00:56:57You're going to get things like a moisture alarm so that you can actually manage the space.

00:57:04One sensor to do all those things, it's pretty incredible, honestly.

00:57:10Something a little crazy.

00:57:12Let's unplug this.

00:57:14Oh, it's angry.

00:57:19It's fine.

00:57:20Okay.

00:57:23Now, I'm going to move slow and hide by my car.

00:57:33So, I don't trigger it.

00:57:35Let's see.

00:57:36No.

00:57:38Even unplugged.

00:57:40It's working.

00:57:41These devices win in four major ways for smart home builders.

00:57:46First is the deep customization between group associations and the configuration or parameter lists.

00:57:53You can dial these in exactly how you want them.

00:57:56Both can even trigger automation simply by detecting that they've been disconnected from power.

00:58:02And second, sensor density.

00:58:04And this kind of goes with the multi-sensor, right?

00:58:07Plugging in one of those, six different data points, and actually more.

00:58:11It replaces three or four other sensors on your wall, giving you a lot of insight into a room.

00:58:17Third is Z-Wave reliability.

00:58:19Now, it's easy to complain about older Z-Wave or Zigbee tech.

00:58:23But when you're building a security system, Z-Wave is bulletproof.

00:58:27It's actually the industry choice.

00:58:29So, when you go out, you see those security systems.

00:58:31They're all built on Z-Wave.

00:58:33So, when you bring all of those things together, this packs a punch as a system.

00:58:39You can get pretty incredible speed out of the multi-sensor when you configure all those parameters in a really

00:58:45aggressive way.

00:58:45And then, you plug in that sensor.

00:58:48That's a huge win.

00:58:49And honestly, I don't see a lot of other sensors that can copy this.

00:58:54But there are three catches you need to consider before buying.

00:58:57First, no matter or thread.

00:58:59It's 2026.

00:59:00Everyone wants matter over thread.

00:59:03If you don't have a Z-Wave hub, you can't use these.

00:59:06That said, I haven't seen any matter sensors with this level of onboard configuration.

00:59:10So, I do think it's a necessary trade-off.

00:59:14Second, no presence detection on the multi-sensor 8.

00:59:17It relies purely on motion.

00:59:19If Aotec had added millimeter wave presence detection, they would wipe out a lot of the competition overnight.

00:59:27Third is the Siren Audio.

00:59:29The Siren 8 has those five built-in tones.

00:59:31But there's no option to upload your own custom sounds or MP3s, which I think is a bit of a

00:59:37miss.

00:59:38Both of these are in a category of their own right now because dedicated, high-quality sensors and sirens, especially

00:59:47in Z-Wave, are getting rare.

00:59:49I'm giving the Siren 8 a buy-if rating, simply because there are a few cheaper options out there.

00:59:56But it's still that excellent Z-Wave Siren option.

01:00:00It is perfect for what it is.

01:00:02Now, Aotec paid for their spot too, which, you know, I should tell you.

01:00:06But I gave one of their two products a buy-if.

01:00:10I should tell you a little bit about our ranking system.

01:00:13But I want to shoot straight with you about how this is going.

01:00:16As a creator, brands constantly ask us to make 15-minute dedicated videos about slightly updated and, frankly, boring tech.

01:00:28Now, honestly, I think that format is completely dead.

01:00:31You don't want to watch it.

01:00:32I don't want to make it.

01:00:33And I built this showcase so I could just tell you when something sucks.

01:00:38Like last month when I called out Ring for charging way too many subscriptions.

01:00:43But you might have noticed today that a lot of products are getting a buy or a buy-if rating.

01:00:49And there's a reason for that.

01:00:51Out of the giant pile of gear coming out, I'm deliberately picking the stuff I think we'll both actually be

01:00:58excited to use.

01:01:00And truthfully, the industry is just getting better.

01:01:04We went through a pretty big lull in 2024 and 2025 where the tech just kind of wasn't hitting the

01:01:10right mark.

01:01:11Not for me anyways.

01:01:12And I think there's lots of reasons for that.

01:01:14We can get into that someday if you want.

01:01:16But right now, in 2026, I think in a lot of cases, companies are actually delivering.

01:01:22But I promise you, this is not going to turn into a hype show.

01:01:27But I would love to talk about something you think is like way overhyped, super expensive.

01:01:33And then I'll talk about whether it actually justifies that price tag.

01:01:38Let me know in the comments if there's an overhyped product you want me to put through the ringer.

01:01:43This is called the Weem amp.

01:01:46And it is a beautiful looking compact amp that works really well with your smart home.

01:01:53Now, at about 300 bucks, it can deliver 60 watts per channel at 8 ohms and 120 watts per channel

01:02:00at 4 ohms of resistance.

01:02:02Now, it's built to drive everything from little bookshelf speakers to more demanding setups.

01:02:08It's just a small aluminum box.

01:02:11But what you get on the back makes it incredibly versatile.

01:02:15You've got an HDMI ARC port for your TV, an optical audio in, a line in, an ethernet port, and

01:02:23a dedicated subwoofer out.

01:02:25But what you're paying for is actually the brain.

01:02:29It supports basically every streaming protocol under the sun.

01:02:35AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Spotify Connect, even Amazon's Cast version, DLNA, and it's something called Room Ready.

01:02:44Now, basically, you add those passive speakers you have in your home and you get a stream option wherever you

01:02:49want it.

01:02:50For my own setup, I kept things simple at first.

01:02:53I basically used it as an AirPlay speaker.

01:02:57I connected it to our Apple TV, and I also streamed directly through their app using a bunch of different

01:03:04music services.

01:03:05The HDMI ARC feature is awesome.

01:03:08When I turn on the TV, it automatically detects it and swaps the audio output from music, if you're playing

01:03:16it, over to the TV.

01:03:17I don't have to mess with remotes or build some crazy routine just to hear my Apple TV.

01:03:23It just sounds great, and it works without any headaches.

01:03:26But there is a reality to this.

01:03:28Now, I bought this because I wanted a multi-zone audio system.

01:03:32If you're not familiar with what that is, we have some in-ceiling speakers that have little zone controllers.

01:03:38And trying to get a three-zone receiver is an expensive proposition.

01:03:43With the pricing of this, I could actually do a three-zone system for under $1,000, and I could

01:03:49use home automation to control it the way that I want to.

01:03:53There's a great integration into Home Assistant.

01:03:55It's direct.

01:03:56You can use, like, Music Assistant if you want, or the standard music player, and you can even join multiple

01:04:03of these together using the vast Home Assistant features.

01:04:07And then you can build playlists, right?

01:04:09In Home Assistant, start those when you walk into a room because of all the automation capabilities there.

01:04:15So where is it great?

01:04:16Well, first, this has those good local control options, especially with platforms like Home Assistant.

01:04:23But they've got a lot of platforms under the hood here.

01:04:26Secondly, the auto-sensing HDMI ARC thing is a really great, real feature to switch between music and TV.

01:04:34And third, it's protocol agnostic.

01:04:37As in, you're not locked into Google Chromecast, stuck using one of their players.

01:04:42You kind of get to go pick what you want.

01:04:44But there are a few places that it might not work for you.

01:04:47There's no headphone jack, so you've got to use, like, a two-way Bluetooth kind of thing if you want

01:04:52your own private music experience to listen on some headphones.

01:04:57Now, the second one, you know, the inputs on this are kind of minimal.

01:05:02If you want to hook up a few things at the same time, you're out of luck.

01:05:06And, you know, that's where I'm going to need multiple of these to set up that whole home system.

01:05:11Otherwise, if you want to power some passive speakers and you don't want to be stuck using just Apple with

01:05:19your Apple TV, this is an option that works really well.

01:05:23It works well with Home Assistant and Apple Home.

01:05:25That's where I was able to test it extensively.

01:05:27And the really cool thing is that this can work in conjunction with things like HomePods, other speakers.

01:05:35So you can kind of bring a whole home system together without a really expensive receiver.

01:05:42All right, automators, we're going to break the format for this one.

01:05:46We don't need a bunch of fancy spec breakdowns for this, okay?

01:05:50I've had four of these Philips Hue Essential bulbs running in my home.

01:05:56And I really want to talk about whether this lineup still makes sense in 2026.

01:06:03Because when Hue announced a budget lineup, the Essentials lineup, at less than half of their standard price,

01:06:10I kind of saw a split in the smart home community.

01:06:13Basically, half of us went, yay, Hue is finally affordable.

01:06:17And the other half said, wait a second, what did they cut out?

01:06:20Well, having lived with them now, they did cut some stuff.

01:06:24First, the dimming floor.

01:06:28If you buy regular Hue bulbs, you know that they have that legendary 0.2% ultra low moody glow.

01:06:36You don't get that here.

01:06:37These bottom out around 2% and in real world visual brightness, it feels much brighter than that.

01:06:43For me, putting one of these in a dark bedroom or a home theater feels too bright.

01:06:49Now, the color temperature range is also tighter.

01:06:51And honestly, that range is not bad.

01:06:53It's kind of what we expected from lights for the last five years.

01:06:57And it's only been the last few where we're getting these color temperature ranges beyond that, like, 2,000 to

01:07:036,500 Kelvin.

01:07:05So why on earth would you buy it?

01:07:08In 2026, you can buy cheap, dirt cheap, Matter-Over Wi-Fi bulbs all day long.

01:07:15This isn't one of them.

01:07:16It's actually an Ikea one.

01:07:17Those come with problems.

01:07:18I think the biggest problem is it can congest your Wi-Fi router.

01:07:22And really, you just end up with a home that doesn't work in general.

01:07:26Now, with Hue in general, and this includes their lineup, you get access to their app, the near-perfect Zigbee

01:07:33mesh,

01:07:34and, you know, existing dimmer switches, they all work with this lineup.

01:07:39There's no difference in terms of control between this and any more expensive Hue product that you've ever purchased.

01:07:46And I think it's really important to point out that just about every smart home platform that Hue connects to,

01:07:52which is just about everyone, is a local integration.

01:07:55So it doesn't require the internet.

01:07:57So here's the reality with the Hue Essential lineup as I see it.

01:08:01You're not putting these in your bedroom.

01:08:03You're not putting them in your home theater.

01:08:05Hallways, like laundry rooms, closets, outdoor stuff, where you want reliable automated light that doesn't need to, like, dim way

01:08:14down.

01:08:15Well, grab these.

01:08:17Fill out your Hue bridge without taking a second mortgage out, okay?

01:08:21I think it's a good play.

01:08:23Don't skip that hub that you need.

01:08:27Work that into your pricing and your planning.

01:08:29Now, let's crown the Automate Your Life pick of the month.

01:08:34This time, I'm giving it to a product that epitomizes what we want to see from every smart home product.

01:08:41We want the basic features to work.

01:08:43We want new technologies packed in so that we get the benefits of those technologies.

01:08:50And then we want to be able to modify the product to make it work exactly how we want it

01:08:56to.

01:08:56And that is the SwitchBot e-Ink dashboard through and through.

01:09:02The basic features of being a weather display and a calendar display are done perfectly.

01:09:08The benefit of the e-Ink technology is that the battery lasts forever and the screen doesn't bother you in

01:09:14the evening.

01:09:15And then I've been able to modify this to work exactly how I want it to.

01:09:20SwitchBot nailed this one.

01:09:23And they get my pick of the month.

01:09:24Now, the deals are all there for SwitchBot through the next couple of months.

01:09:28So, pick yourself up one of these right now.

01:09:30Honestly, their e-Ink products sell out quite a bit.

01:09:33You can check out all of our reviews and guides for all of the products in our video today in

01:09:40the links in the description.

01:09:41And, of course, I'll have all the links for you to go buy products or have another look at them.

01:09:46If you're looking at any of these products and you haven't really got your smart home to work well, get

01:09:53the products to work well together, you need our Smart Home 101 series of videos.

01:09:59And I just released our cornerstone video for that series.

01:10:02It's called How to Build a Smart Home 101.

01:10:04And it is the ultimate guide to starting your home.

01:10:08You can look at the comments here from that video for a little bit of proof.

01:10:12I'm not blowing smoke.

01:10:14It's they're all up on screen here.

01:10:16OK, and that video is up on screen now.

01:10:18So click there to learn the right way.

01:10:21Otherwise, thanks for watching today.

01:10:23And of course, live smart.

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